Like jazz? Then make tracks for Seattle, where the Earshot Jazz Festival is about to celebrate its 21st year with three weeks of jazz events at venues throughout the city. From October 16 to November 8, 2009, jazz musicians from around the world will converge on Seattle to give solo performances and collaborate with local musicians to create hybrid sounds that are at once dissonant and harmonic. There are more than 50 performances in all, ranging from the classic sounds of Trio 3 - featuring jazz legends Andrew Cyrille (drums), Reggie Workman (bass), and Oliver Lake (saxophones) - and the Jason Marsalis Vibes Quartet, to the Marc Cary Trio with Foday Musa Suso, which combines East Indian and West African rhythms with African American musical traditions. If that's still not enough jazz for you, check out the Earshot Jazz Film Festival, which celebrates the intersection of jazz and cinema with screenings of the acclaimed Guy And Madeline On A Park Bench (featuring musician Jason Palmer) and the Seattle-made documentary Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense, which highlights the young musicians of today who are taking the jazz message forward into the 21st century. Starwood has five hotels in the Seattle area, including the W Seattle, an icon in its own right.
